According to a UTV news report, Titanic Belfast is a major economic boost to Belfast exceeding original targets. Between April 1, 2012 when Titanic Belfast began to March 2015 ,900 jobs have been created. 1.9 million people attended the galleries along with conferences and special exhibitions that drew people in as well.
The figures also show that most visitors were from outside Northern Ireland (over 71%). Visitors spend money in lodging, food, sightseeing, and of course all kinds of extra purchases that put money into the economy. Titanic was a tragedy but celebrating its loss has proven to be a major boost for Belfast.
A couple of rare Titanic items are up for auction:a ticket from the Turkish bath, a lunch menu, and a letter written six months after the disaster by Lady Duff Gordon’s secretary. The auction for these items is at Lion Heart Autographs in New York on 30 September. Bids are being accepted online.
Here is an article from National Geographic about the auction and its historic value:
Cruise Arabia & Africa reports that Clive Palmer’s Blue Star Line has
announced that Titanic II’s maiden voyage in 2018 will be from Jiangsu, China to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. Blue Star has stated that the project is still on refuting rumors of its demise. Originally the maiden voyage was to be from Southampton to New York. James McDonald, the global marketing director of Blue Star Line says the change was due to seeking business partnerships in Dubai.
We are not looking for investment from Dubai, as it is a project we are
funding ourselves, but we have been in contact with a number of
companies based in the Emirates who are looking at utilising
opportunities that arises with the project. It is people looking to use
the opportunity of the trademark and licensing potential of the
project… We own the Titanic II name and trademark and people are
lining up to be part of it.
Not so long ago I reported of interest in Dubai in Titanic II and
speculated that since Palmer is not getting the Chinese investors he was hoping for, that he would seek out investors in UAE. Now so far they official line is that the ship will still be built in China but suppose
with all those “business partnerships” being formed in Dubai that the ship can be built there and cheaper than China? So far no official order has been placed with a Chinese shipyard, Palmer is involved in a serious row with the Chinese government, and a Titanic replica is already being built. And, just as a wild thought, suppose you could add in the Titanic Artifact collection to Dubai with Palmer’s Titanic II?
Every year when the calendar turns to autumn, I always look for the
first Titanic themed Halloween story. Sometimes it is stories of ghosts at Titanic exhibits or other such things. Well Premier Exhibitions has decided to capitalize on this interest by offering their own Haunted Ghost Tours at the Luxor Hotel exhibition in Las Vegas this Halloween season. According to the press release:
One of the most interesting spirit stories told is the “Lady in Black” who is often seen on the Grand Staircase crying for her famous friend, Margaret Brown. Visitors will also get the chance to feel the presence of Frederick Fleet, Titanic’s look-out on the ill-fated night, who watches over the Exhibition’s Promenade Deck as he attempts to make up for his unfortunate late sighting of the iceberg. Additionally, guests will learn about the passenger who prophesied the sinking of the Ship of Dreams by writing to a friend just a few days before perishing in the North Atlantic, “Right now I wish the ‘Titanic’ were lying at the bottom of the ocean.
These special tours are only on Saturday nights at 8pm in October. I am surprised they will not have a special midnight tour on Halloween itself since it will be a Saturday (they will have the 8pm one though). Perhaps those ghost hunter guys will show up with those gizmos that detect ghosts to add an air of authority and perhaps a special on the History Channel (real Ghosts of Titanic!). Or just send in that poor sidekick from Muppet Labs. The last time he visited a haunted house, it was quite memorable.
1. The Titanic themed hotel at Stanley Dock in Liverpool, UK has been nominated for an international design award. ADI Studio, who designed the interior, is one of the finalists in the hotel design category of International Design Excellence Award.
Source:Titanic Hotel Nominated For International Design Award(18 Sep 2015,Liverpool Echo)
2. The Titanic Exhibition Center has opened in Belfast’s Titanic Quarter. The center will allow various events to used for “exhibitions, community and sporting events, as well as large-scale banquets.”
Source:Titanic Exhibition Centre Opens Its Doors After 80-Day Turnaround(17 Sep 2015,Belfast Live)
3. In what seems decades ago in computer standards, an old Titanic computer game is getting a new life: Starship Titanic. It was based on Douglas Adam’s Life,The Universe, and Everything.Like all golden games from so long ago, it was consigned to the graveyard of forgotten computer game favorites (like many of the original Tomb Raider games are these days). It now has been resurrected for the PC thanks to GOG.com. You can check out the game here.
Source:You can finally play Douglas Adams’ Starship Titanic on a modern PC (17 Sep 2015, theverge.com)
1. Titanic II Ticket Demand Expected To Increase Cruise Ship News speculates that now the project is back on, that demand for tickets will begin again. “One thing we do know though, and that is the fact there will now be renewed demand for Titanic 2 ticket prices. Details of Titanic II tickets had already been shared, but not their prices. We do know that there will be first, second and third class like the original liner, and some people have been offering up to £640,000($987,216USD) so they can be the first to experience life aboard the Titanic 2.” They might want to wait until construction actually begins before offering substantial sums of money. There is still a lot of doubt this will get built.
Source: Titanic 2 Ticket Demand Renewed Following Latest Launch News(14 Sep 2015,Cruise Ship News)
2. Titanic Whistles Heard For The First Time Since 1912 At Luxor Titanic Exhibition
Back in 1912 recording media was very primitive so we have no idea what Titanic’s whistles sounded like. Now we have a pretty good idea. A set of Titanic’s whistles were recovered in 1993,cleaned and then X-rayed. The whistles are believed to been on the first funnel and could be used one last time. In 1999 using high-pressured air, the whistle tones were recorded. The whistle sound, two separate blasts of about eight seconds each, are heard by visitors to the Titanic exhibition at Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. A replica set of the whistles is on display as well (the original is at the Huntington Park, California exhibition).
Source:Whistles Give Voice To Tragedy At Luxor Titanic Exhibition(13 Sep 2015,Las Vegas Review Journal)
3. 30 Years!
On September 1, 1985, a joint expedition of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and French National Institute of Oceanography (IFREMER) located Titanic just a little after 1am. Lying over 12,400 feet down, it was a major success for Robert Ballard (WHOI) and Jean Louis Michel of IFREMER to finally locate the wreck. Using a new approach of using a deep towed sonar and video camera system, they were looking for debris rather than just one large object. They found the debris field and followed it to the wreck. It was a major achievement for both and brought worldwide attention. It answered some questions and raised more. Titanic did not sink in one piece but in two. Further explorations would learn there was no large gash but perhaps punctures caused by the iceberg grazing against it. The subsequent salvage would touch off a firestorm between Titanic historians and enthusiasts, a debate that still lingers to this day.
Source: 1985 Discovery of RMS Titanic(Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)
A lawsuit by Mark Sellers, former chairman of Premier Exhibitions and through Sellers Capital owns 15.4 million shares in the company, is suing George Wight Jr. and his companies, Armada Enterprises and Armada Group of Florida. In 2014, Sellers agreed to sell his majority stake in Premier for $16.2 million. Sellers alleges Wight reneged on the deal. And he also alleges Wight misled the Premier board and shareholders about the money available to complete the deal. Sellers is requesting that a federal judge force Wight to follow through with original deal terms, seeks more than $12.5 million in damages. Currently Premier is the process of merging with Dinoking Tech. Dinoking exhibits animatronic dinosaurs. The deal is yet to be approved by the shareholders (to be voted on in October) and would allow Premier to acquire all shares of Dinoking for $6.4 million and its principal shareholder, Daoping Bao, will take control of the company.
Needless to say, this is going to cause some problems for the Dinoking merger. If the lawsuit succeeds, it would force Wight to consummate the original deal with Sellers. Not that everyone is entirely convinced of the Dinoking deal. There are nagging questions about Dinoking and its capital sourcing. And Andrew Shapiro who is president of Lawndale Capital Management with a five percent stake is quoted as saying:
Similarly, if new, more skilled board and management were assembled, Lawndale might be willing to participate in a rights offering to all shareholders to raise additional equity supporting a debt refinancing that together might prove to be a superior bid to that of Dinoking and its questionable capital sourcing.
Online auctioneer To Auction Off Titanic Lunch Menu Lion Heart Autographs of New York is auctioning off a rare Titanic lunch menu and other artifacts on 30 Sep 2015. The menu is signed in pencil by first class passenger Isaac Gerald Frauenthal. A ticket from the weighing chair in the Turkish baths and a letter written by survivor Mabel Francatelli to Abraham Lincoln Salomon are also being auctioned at the same time. The menu is expected to fetch between $50,000-$70,000, the ticket $7500-$10,000, and the letter $4,000-$6,000.
Source: Last Lunch Menu And Artefacts From Titanic’s Number One Lifeboat Auctioned(31 Aug 2015,The Guardian)
Titanic II or Titanic III? Maritime Executive reports on the new time frame for Titanic II but looks at the Chinese replica being built in China as another possibility for Titanic enthusiasts. The article does not add anything new about Titanic II or the Chinese replica but sort of raises the question as to which one would you rather experience. Assuming of course if Palmer’s Titanic II ever gets built.
Source:Titanic II or Titanic III(30 Aug 2015,Maritime Executive)
Michel Navaratil Remembered At Bratislava Titanic Exhibition Michel Navaratil, who perished when Titanic sank but got his two sons into lifeboats,is being remembered as part of a Titanic exhibition in Bratislava, Slovakia. Navratil was born in Sered’ in 1880 and left for France at age 20. There he met Marcella Caretto with whom he had two sons: Michel and Edmond. After learning his wife had cheated on him, he decided to take his sons to the United States. Sadly he never made it but his kids survived causing a worldwide search for his relatives. Ultimately their mother found about them and they returned to France. The exhibition runs until 6 Dec 2015.
Titanic Wreck Bow Image: Public Domain (NOAA-http://www.gc.noaa.gov/images/gcil/ATT00561.jpg)
Protecting Titanic: A Bit Too Late To Make A Difference
One of the raging controversies that divides (and still divides)the Titanic community was salvage. When Titanic was found in 1985, two miles down and in international waters, it meant no country could claim it within their borders. A company called RMS Titanic Inc (now part of Premier Exhibitions)went out and brought up some artifacts. It then went to federal court in the United States (in the United States the federal courts have original jurisdiction on maritime claims)and made a salvage claim. Since they had actual artifacts and the company that once owned the ship is gone (technically it became part of Cunard but it made no attempt to exert any legal claim on the wreck), they were awarded salvor-in-possession. One insurance company (which paid money out on a claim when Titanic sank)reached a settlement with RMS Titanic, Inc. The rest, as it is said, is history and the artifacts brought up now comprise Titanic:The Artifact Exhibition.
There was a brief tourist business in having people dive to the wreck. It was hideously expensive and there was some minor legal kerfuffle by RMS Titanic Inc to stop it (they lost). But that has pretty much died away. The wreck itself, like all wrecks, is being slowly eaten up by the sea (microbes and other organisms)and will be nothing more in a decade or more. Hardly anyone dives to it anymore. RMS Titanic Inc gave up its salvage claim and has been trying–unsuccessfully so far–in selling the Titanic collection. Now word comes Canada wants an exception to its claim of territory so it can claim the wreck as being in its waters. Huh? This makes no sense at all except as a publicity stunt. The wreck is disintegrating, some say accelerated by the diving down to it by salvagers and tourists. It might have made sense way long ago but it is far too late to make any difference now. It sounds nice though, from the government point-of-view, that we are taking steps to preserve the final moments of this disintegrating wreck. Too bad no one asks the obvious question why they waited till 2015 when they could have tried it back in 1985.
Source:The Way the Titanic Is Treated May Be About to Change(2 Sep 2015,Newser)
The Ship That Might Be Built
The most interesting news in a while is that Titanic II is possibly back on again. A spokesman for Clive Palmer’s Blue Star Line told a newspaper that it will be built by late 2018. This follows a string of reports over the year that it was not on. Palmer has had problems getting Chinese investors, the shipyard in China appears reluctant, but worse is his spat with the Chinese government that would doom it completely. The recent news comes from a Middle Eastern news agency. That would suggest that perhaps Palmer is rounding up investors there and that it could be built there. China is already building its own Titanic replica for a theme park so they might not be interested in building one for Palmer. Will it be built? Many doubt it will and until actual construction begins all we have are words floating around the air.
Krakatoa, Again
The famous Krakatoa eruption occurred 132 years ago and still fascinates those who study volcanoes. What made this eruption remarkable were a couple of things. It was the first eruption that got instant media attention. Thanks to underwater telegraph cables, the world learned about the devastating eruptions of 26-27 Aug 1883 within hours. People forget that before there was an internet and telephones were still a marvel, it was the telegraph that alerted people to news and other things. Underwater cables, which used a particular rubber from Indonesia (then the Dutch East Indies) to protect them, made telegraph transmission faster than the old overland route that took a long while. The eruption pushed forward the science of volcanoes and their effects. It confirmed that small bits of volcanic matter thrust into the atmosphere (something that happened when Tambora erupted in 1815 causing the “Year Without A Summer” in the west) would hang around for a long time causing global effects. The massive pressure of the islands eruption was measured on barometers nearby and far, far away. The huge tsunami was also measured quite a distance away as well (though greatly reduced in strength in many cases). Krakatoa spurred more investigation into understanding how our world works geologically speaking. It came at a terrible price with over 36,000 dead.
Baseball Movie: The Natural(1984)
Bernard Malmud’s antihero story was transformed into a more positive story about its central character Roy Hobbs. The movie sought to create a wonderful mythological story with elements of Greek and Arthurian elements. When it was first released, it got mixed reviews from critics and baseball fans. I had a chance to view a new edition of the movie that has put back the scenes deleted from the theatrical run. This director’s edition adds a lot more depth to the movie (it has a lot more background information about Hobb’s). And the extras include interviews about the movie, the book it is based on, and other information most will like. It works. I thoroughly enjoyed this edition and cheered when Hobb’s hits the lights at the end of the movie.
A lawsuit by Mark Sellers, former chairman of Premier Exhibitions and through Sellers Capital owns 15.4 million shares in the company, is suing George Wight Jr. and his companies, Armada Enterprises and Armada Group of Florida. In 2014, Sellers agreed to sell his majority stake in Premier for $16.2 million. Sellers alleges Wight reneged on the deal. And he also alleges Wight misled the Premier board and shareholders about the money available to complete the deal. Sellers is requesting that a federal judge force Wight to follow through with original deal terms, seeks more than $12.5 million in damages. Currently Premier is the process of merging with Dinoking Tech. Dinoking exhibits animatronic dinosaurs. The deal is yet to be approved by the shareholders (to be voted on in October) and would allow Premier to acquire all shares of Dinoking for $6.4 million and its principal shareholder, Daoping Bao, will take control of the company.
